Video of a talk I gave in Oslo at the Norwegian Annual Communications/PR Forum “5 rules for PR in the digital era”.
Crowd Manufacturing
Long after his death Isaac Newton’s unpublished papers finally revealed a hidden obsession with alchemy. Newton was interested in particular with the Philosopher’s Stone, a proto-scientific cum mystical experiment reputed to transmutate one material into another. The Crown feared that the alchemists would devalue the coinage if they did one day manage to make gold coins out of lead. Newton, …
The Internet makes trust and insight scarce commodities, and makes newsroom veterans more valuable
Recently I have been looking at the newspaper as a service and as a business (for reasons that will become apparent later). Something is becoming clear. While the Internet makes information plentiful, and this in turn may be a challenge to some aspects of the newspaper business, deep insight and trust remain as scarce as they have ever been. Indeed, …
Jerry Brito of SurprisinglyFree interviewed me on the history + future of the Net
Jerry Brito, a tech thinker and writer for Time Magazine interviewed me about my recent book, A history of the Internet and the digital future as part of his ‘Surprisingly Free’ podcast series with techies. Jerry has an interesting background: he’s an academic, but he has also lead some interesting projects – see below – and has a interesting take …
A Moore’s Law for 3D printing? (I need data)
Moore’s Law (transistors per chip) and Hendy’s Law (pixels per dollar) have been useful predictors of where processing power and digital photography were going. Something similar would be really useful for 3D printing. I tried to plot a law for the quality of print per dollar of 3D printers for an article I have been working on for the McKinsey …
3D printing – Johnny Ryan talks with Vyomesh Joshi, EVP of HP’s printing business
HP are interesting because they are the first major manufacturer to enter the 3D printing space, partnering last year with Stratasys to offer 3D printers directly to designers and architects at the sub $20,000 range. So I questioned Vyomesh Joshi, Executive Vice President of HP’s Imaging and Printing Group, about where HP is going. Johnny Ryan: HP is unusual among …
Frederick Taylor, DEC, and Zynga: how does “idea fuel” filter to the top of perpetual beta organisations?
I broke bread with the speakers after the Dublin Web Summit on Friday (see my coverage of the Summit for Wired UK), and sat opposite Marcus Segal, Zynga’s Chief Operating Officer for Games. Segal is faced with a hell of a problem: Zynga is growing like a super nova, and the model it uses relies on trying out new ideas …
My piece in Wired UK – “Optimism in Dublin’s start-up scene: Pub Summit 2011 report”
My piece for Wired UK on the start up scene in Ireland, and the Pub Summit last night, is copied below. See article on Wired. Text of the article below: Despite the rain, and economic collapse, Dublin seems to be the place to be at the moment. A long line of entrepreneurs and investors queued in the rain to get …
Optimism in Ireland
Last night at the Pub Summit I spoke to Eoghan Jennings, ex-CFO of Xing, and the man behind the new Bootcamp accelerator that will be launching in 2012. I was struck by his optimism, and he gave me 12 reasons why Ireland is a good place for startups (credit to Colm Rafferty from Maples & Caulder who gave Eoghan input …
My overview of 3D printing in Fortune Magazine
My basic overview of 3D printing appears in the current (Fortune 500) issue of Fortune. This piece lays out some rudimentary basics, but I am currently working on a more detailed piece – on what I call the “crowd manufacturing cycle” (short note on this idea in previous post titled “Objects 2.0”). Also, see a more recent post with my …